Duo Maxwell was awakened from a rather nice dream about Heero and himself
by the clanging of a metal stick against the bars of his cell. Opening his
eyes, he saw the hated guard unlocking the door. The man was planning to
torture Duo again. Duo charged the man, intent on escape, but the man was
larger and stronger and he grabbed the Shinigami Pilot and shoved him back
against the wall, closing and locking the cell door behind them.

"Strip."

Duo shook his head.

"If you don't take your clothes off I'll rip them from your body
and you'll have nothing to wear when I'm finished with you."

"Go to hell." Duo snarled.

True to his word, the guard tore Duo's clothes from his body, ripping
everything he was wearing to shreds. Duo fought him, trying to escape, to
get the hell out of there before the man could do anything else. The guard's
strength won out, however, and he soon had Duo's wrists cuffed behind his
back. He lied Duo on his stomach upon the cot, then pushed the steel pole
into him, thrusting, ramming. Duo waited for the man to lose control and
impale him, terrified each time it was thrust into him.

"Get that fucking thing out of him!"

Duo felt a mixture of relief and humiliation as the guard pulled the
pole out of him. He heard a gunshot and a body falling, then the cuffs were
being removed from his waist. He was turned over and found himself looking
up into Heero's eyes.

"Duo, did he...?" Heero asked.

"No." Duo shook his hand. "He raped me with that pole
but you got here before he could have sex with me."

Heero wanted to take Duo to the hospital, but Duo was too humiliated,
so Heero took him home instead.

*****

The guard woke the next morning in the OZ medical facility. Zechs was
glaring down at him. "You fool!" the OZ leader complained. "You
almost ruined everything. I just hope you didn't do any internal damage
to that pilot. You were just supposed to fuck him, not play Vlad the Impaler.
Now we'll have to recapture him and try again."

"I'll do better next time." the guard promised.

Zechs shook his head as the doctor gave the man a shot. "There won't
be a next time." he said, quietly, as he watched the man's eyes close
for the last time. Then, he returned to his carrier and departed. "Maxwell's
gone." he told Treize. "Our overzealous guard almost killed him
before he was saved by his fellow pilot, Heero Yuy. Transmitting surveillance
camer a footage now." he waited while Treize watched the rescue. "Shall
I attempt to recapture him?"

"No." Treize shook his head. "I have a better idea. It
looks to me like Heero Yuy is in love with Duo Maxwell. Let's just leave
them alone and see what happens."

*****
-Chapter 2-

Duo was sitting on the sofa, watching television, when Heero walked into
the living rom and sat beside him. "I sent the others to a movie."
he told Duo. "I think we need to talk."

"About..."

Heero took a deep breath, then clasped Duo's hands in his own.

"Duo," he said, his eyes sincere, "during the month you
were gone, I got to thinking. I realized that I missed you and that you
were more important to me than anything else, even my own life. I guess,
what I'm trying to say is... I love you, Duo Maxwell."

Duo's heart was racing with joy. "I love you, too, Heero."
he replied. He snuggled up to Heero, sighing contentedly. "Please,
Heero, make love to me."

"You don't have to." Heero told Duo.

"I want to." Duo replied. "Please, Heero. Before I'm caught
again and lose my virginity to some OZ bastard. I want you to be my first.
Please?"

Heero nodded, then carried Duo upstairs to bed.

Duo lay on his stomach, parting his thighs so Heero could touch him.

"No, my love." Heero said, softly. "Not like that. I want
to look into your eyes when I take you. But first, I want to prepare you."
he reached down between Duo's legs, carefully groping and stroking his virginal
lover. He kissed Duo, soflty, feeling the change in the other boy's breathing
upon his lips as his caresses aroused Duo more and more until Duo was shivering
with desire. Then he kissed his way down Duo's body, taking Duo's erection
into his mouth and bringing him to the brink of orgasm. At the same time,
he coated his fingers with some lubricant and slipped them into Duo. He
wanted it to be painless for the sweet Shinigami pilot. Then, he pulled
back and knelt between Duo's legs. He pulled Duo onto his lap, gazing at
the desirous expression on the braided pilot's face as he lifted Duo's hips
and lowered the Shinigami Pilot onto the Wing Pilot's waiting erection.

Duo let out moan of pure pleasure as Heero buried himself in the braided
pilot. Heero grasped Duo's hips, and began to pump Duo up and down upon
the erection that was thrust up inside him.

Duo clutched the pillow, his upper body never losing contact with the
bed, as he rolled his head from side to side, his body writhing with passion
until he could no longer stand it.

Heero carefully placed a finger at the base of Duo's erection, just as
Duo came, crying out Heero's name in a voice filled with desire and love.
He smiled as his little trick staved off the braided pilot's ejaculation
even as his own orgasm filled the Shinigami pilot .

Duo was about to protest when Heero withdrew from inside him and took
him into his mouth. Duo cried out Heero's name for the second time that
night as he came once more. Then, Heero lay back and drew Duo into his arms.

"I love you." Heero whispered. "I'll always love you."
he looked down and saw that Duo was sound asleep. "My poor love,"
he said, affectionately, "I guess I wore you out." he was still
holding Duo in his arms when he, too, fell asleep.

*****
-Chapter 3-

"So, what's wrong with me?" Duo asked the doctor. It had been
four months since he had started sleeping with Heero and he was starting
to feel a bit under the weather.

"Nothing's wrong." the doctor assured him. "You just need
to slow down a bit. You're exhausting yourself between your work and your
lover. Try that for a month, then come back and see me."

Duo nodded and left the hospital.

As soon as Duo was gone, the doctor picked up the phone and called OZ
HQ. "Lt. Zechs, Doctor Ichihara here."

*****

"Hold on, sir, I'll put him on."

Zechs leaned agaist the wall as he took the phone from the aide who'd
answered . "Thank you. Yes? Excellent, that's wonderful news. You didn't
tell him, did you? Good. He mustn't find out too soon. What cover are you
using? Good choice. I'll leave the rest up to you. " he hung up the
phone then turned as Treize walked in.

Treize drew Zechs into his arms, their tongues clashing as they kissed
each other, hungrily. "Anyone important?"

"Dr. Ichihara." Zechs replied. "Duo Maxwell is four months
pregnant."

*****

-Chapter 4-

"What did the doctor say?" Heero asked as Duo returned to the
safehouse.

"He said I'm overdoing things." Duo shrugged. "I guess
he could be right about that."

"He say anything else?"

"Just that I should take things easy for a month and then see him
again to see if there are any changes."

"And if there aren't?"

"More tests, I suppose." Duo shrugged.

*****

"So, it seems you were right." Zechs told Treize. "Heero
Yuy has impregnated Duo Maxwell as we had hoped. Duo's already in the first
month of his second trimester."

"And the implant?" Treize asked. "Any concerns?"

"None. It seems to be holding up well. There's been no sign of tissue
rejection."

"And his diet? Surely that had to be changed, given the changes
to his body?"

"He's on a very bland liquid diet at the moment."

*****

-Chapter 5-

"Ugh! Can't I have just one decent meal. Something with a lot of
nice unhealthy red meat?" Duo glared at his drink as if he intended
somehow to change it into a nice bacon cheeseburg by sheer force of will.
He looked over at Quatre's butler. "Could I borrow your old pocketwatch?"
he asked.

The butler looked confusedly at Quatre who nodded his permission, then
handed the timepiece in question to Duo.

Duo waved it in front of the glass of liquid "No repeat after me,"
he instructed said glass "I am a pizza... I am a pizza."

The glass of liquid clearly did not feel like becoming a pizza and continue
to just sit there.

Duo handed the pocketwatch back to the butler, shaking his head sadly.

"I guess it's just liquid diet until they resolve whatever is wrong
with me. I just can't figure it out, though. The doctor said, yesterday,
that I have to wait another month. I was sure I'd be well enough by now."

"I'm sure its just the stress from worrying about it that's causing
you to take longer to heal than the doctor expected," Quatre offered.

The doctor sipped his coffee as he filled in the paperwork regarding
Duo's actual condition. These papers would not go into Duo's official
folder. The ones in there would back up the doctor's claim to Duo that
the boy had a stress-related ulcer. These papers gave the real reason
for Duo's inability to eat any solid foods; radical surgery done
during the time of his last captivity. It had been done as soon as
he'd been taken. The doctor guessed that Duo had probably been unaware
that he'd even been drugged when he'd woken in his cell. That made his
job a lot easier, and Duo's death would simplify things further since
it would mean the boy would not be able to file charges against him.
He could blame OZ if a scandal arose, have no one to suggest
otherwise, and walk away smelling like roses... no, not like roses,
those were Treize flowers... like lilacs. As he wrote down what had
actually been done to Duo's body, the removal of various internal
organs, the addition of others, he winced. If the medical board ever
found out what he'd done, they'd probably lynch him for it. The
experiement was, so far, successful. But, he knew, the patient, Duo,
would not survive it's ultimate conclusion.

-Chapter 8-

"Duo?"

Duo lay in bed. The liquid diet his ulcer forced him to be on left him
feeling weak and lethargic. He would be glad, he decided, when the
doctor could finally take care of it. He was beginning to wonder when
that would be. Every time he'd seen the doctor, the man had found
another reason to delay the surgery. He wondered why he hadn't lost
any weight. Being on a liquid diet, he thought, should've caused him
to lose at least some weight, but he didn't notice himself getting any
thinner.

"Duo?"

Duo rolled over and looked at Heero. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Duo admitted. "I'm sorry I got snippy
at you earlier.
Heero I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't mean to be so moody.
I just..."

"Unlike me?!" Duo blinked. "Sorry. I didn't realize I
had to keep
acting the same way every time something happened to me. Damn it,
Heero, it's not the same as being shot at or even losing someone. It's
much more personal, an attack against *me*. All that other stuff, it
affected me, sure. But that's different. You know what I mean?"

"I said boys don't cry." Duo replied. "I always say, to
make myself
stop. But the tears come anyhow. I don't like it, but I can't stop
it."

"Don't stop it, Duo." Heero replied. "Don't let yourself
become like
me. I don't even like to think about all the times I nearly lost you
because I couldn't admit how much I cared. I remember the last time I
saw you crying. It was when Quatre had been found after we thought
he'd been killed. You were so relieved. But after all the killing
we've done, I thought you'd get used to death."

"I never knew you talked so much." Duo said, one eyebrow raised.

"That's because you never shut up long enough for me to get a word
in
edgewise." Heero replied. "Duo, my question..."

Duo smiled, tiredly. "Okay, I'll answer you, but then I'm going
to
sleep, I'm tired. Its like the assault on me in that OZ prison. Its
different if someone you know and care about dies. If some faceless,
nameless enemy I don't know dies, by my hand, yours, or anybody's, it
doesn't affect me. I don't care. Maybe that's cold-blooded, but it's
true. But if any of you guys got killed, it would still hurt.. I would
cry over that becaues you guys are more than just friends to me.
You're family."

"So, if I marry you, would that make Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei my
pilot-in-laws?"

Duo laughed, sleepily, then went silent. "Heero, was that a
proposal?" He asked after several minutes.

"Yeah." Heero decided. "I guess it was. So, will you?"

"Yes." Duo accepted, finally drifting off to sleep.

-Chapter 9-

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Duo sat bolt-upright in his and Heero's bed
and
clutched his slightly swollen abdomen. A panicked look crossed his
face, and with good reason "Something moved in there!"

"What are you talking about Duo?" Heero muttered, annoyed at
being
woken up in the middle of the night, but still concerned. He was back
in his old bunk these days. Duo had been tossing and turning a lot,
lately, and had even taken to kicking the Perfect Soldier in his
sleep. Heero decided that until whatever was going on was resolved,
he'd be safer in his own bed.

"In my stomach. Something moved."

"You been swallowing live goldfish?" Heero asked, tiredly.
He loved
Duo, but it was three in the morning and even perfect soldiers needed
to sleep sometimes.

"Heero, this is serious." Duo was too panicked to be jovial
at this
point. Visions of the scene from the ancient movie classic Alien...
where the thing burst out of the astronaut's chest kept flashing
before his eyes.

Heero frowned. "Well, you've put on 15 pounds since your last
doctor's visit so it sure as hell isn't an overactive tapeworm."

Duo's eyes widened. "It just did it again! Heero get over here."
he
saw the scowl in his lover's eyes. "Just humor me, okay?"

"Hn..." Heero dragged himself out of his own bed and over to
Duo's.
Sitting on the edge of Duo's bed, he frowned. "Okay, now what."

Duo took Heero's hand and placed it where he'd felt the two
movements. For long while nothing happened. Then, just as Heero was
starting to move his hand away, a third movement finally took place.

"He said it was just something weird with your pulse in that area
because your blood vessels were working double-time to deal with that
ulcer. Or something like that." Heero shrugged. He loved Duo and
cared greatly for him, but he didn't give a pair of fetid dingo's
kidneys about all this medical mumbo jumbo. "He says you should
remain in bed and get plenty of rest during the next couple of
weeks."

"Next couple of weeks?" Duo asked. "So he's finally going
to fix it?"

"Looks that way." Heero replied.

"That's a relief." Duo sighed. "First thing I'm gonna
do after that
surgery is done is eat a nice unhealthy hamburger with lots of
toppings, wash it down with a nice cold shake, and top it off with a
killer hot fudge sundae."

"Don't push yourself, Duo." Heero reminded him. "I don't
want you
making yourself sick from eating too much after being on a liquid
diet."

//Just how does one gain fifteen pounds on a liquid diet?// Duo
wondered, but didn't ask, as sleepiness overtook him and he drifted
back into slumber.

*****

Pain unlike any he'd ever encountered, even while being tortured by
OZ, shocked Duo into wakefulness a week later. He looked around,
pain-induced panic filling his mind, as he realized the others were
gone. They'd probably gone on a mission and had left him home asleep
because of the doctor's orders that he get plenty of bedrest.
Staggering out of his room, despite the mesage Heero had passed onto
the doctor, Duo got to the phone and called the doctor. "Please, you
have to help me." he said. "Send an ambulance. Please you..."
he
realized he couldn't tell them the location of the safehouse. "I'm
at
the cafe.. the one on the end of Oakdale Drive." he dropped the
phone, then staggered to the cafe, in too much pain and too desperate
to get dressed. The short trip to the cafe two blocks away took a lot
out of the usually resilient pilot and he collapsed in the parking
lot moments before the ambulance arrived.

As the ambulance sped to the hospital, it was overtaken by OZ
vehicles.

"Damn," he muttered, "they must think this is Heero's
ambulance. I'm
in too much pain to fight them, or I'd kick their collective asses."

The ambulance driver pulled over.

//He's probably scared out of his mind.// Duo thought. //I guess I
would be, too, if I were in his place... if I weren't Shinigami that
is.//

Three OZ soldiers climbed into the ambulance, ordering the driver
out.

"You," the oldest of the three, and probably the senior officer
judging back th uniform, said to the youngest, "stay back there with
him." he pointed to Duo and the youngest soldier took up a position
at Duo's side.

*****

Heero rushed into the safehouse. He'd been trying to call Duo and had
finally gotten to the point where he wanted to ascertain that Duo was
all right, and maybe give him a good yelling at for worrying him if
he was. When he'd found the door wide open and the phone off the
hook, his agile mind immediately put the pieces together. Duo had
been in pain and had called an ambulance. So he was in the hospital.

Heero r ushed back to the ambulance and raced to the hospital.

*****

Duo lay on his his, curled up, on a bed in an OZ hospital. A number
of men he guessed were orderlies of some kind, were holding his arms
and legs while the OZ doctors removed his clothes.

"NO!" he fought, viciously, despite the pain, occassionally
freeing
an arm or a leg, only to have it grabbed and pilled again. He
belonged to Heero. Only Heero was allowed to touch him.

The next pain hit, Duo's face became a mask of agony, teeth bared as
he fought against it.

"Push." the doctor ordered.

//Oh dear God...// Duo thought as realization hit him. "I can't,
you
idiot." he managed to snap at the doctor."

"Yes, you can." the doctor informed him. "You entire body
has been
altered so you can deliver a child. Of course, you will die, but you
can give birth to this baby."

The casual way in which the doctor had informed him of his impending
death was even more horrific than the terrible pain he was going
through. Duo was so disturbed by it, that it took him several minutes
to realize that this was the same doctor he'd been seeing. 'You...
you knew." he realized as another pain struck him.

"Push." the doctor commanded. A smile crept over his face.
"Yes, I
knew. I was ordered, by OZ, to watch over their little experiment and
make sure you didn't find out before you went into labor."

*****

Having been informed at the hospital of the ambulance-jacking, Heero
finally tracked down Duo's location and raced to the OZ base. If the
Shinigami Pilot's hospital room/cell hadn't been in the basement,
and if the walls hadn't been soundproof, Heero would've heard the
pilot's final agonized scream that accompanied the birth of Duo's
child.

He blew a hole in the side of the building with Wing's beam cannon,
then raced inside and rushed to find Duo. Hordes of OZ troops rushed
to meet him. But this was a mistake on their part. Duo was in
trouble, and Heero would not let these people hurt his fiance.

Heero fought throught to Duo's cell with the ferocity of a wolf
who's mate was in peril. He saw Duo lying there, naked, in a pool of
blood while was still flowing from the boy's gruesomely torn nether
regions. It looked like Duo had been split open. Heero fought the
urge to vomit and took the wounded pilot in his arms. "Duo?" he
asked.

"I..." Duo struggled to speak. "I had a baby, Heero...
" he
explained as he finally succumbed to the terrible injury the birth
had caused.

Heero knew he was the only person who had ever actually had sex
with Duo. But how the devil had Duo gotten pregnant? He'd need the
body for an autopsy, he decided. But first he had to find the baby
Duo had delivered.

He found the doctor as the man was carrying the infant out to the
ambulance. "Give the baby to me." he ordered, aiming his gun at
the
man's head.

The doctor turned and fled. It was his greatest and last mistake.
Overcome with anger at Duo's death by this man's action, Heero pumped
six bullets into the man's skull before and raced forward, grabbing
the baby away before the man finally fell to the pavement in a dead
heap.

Placing the baby in his own ambulance, and locking it's doors, Heero
raced back into the OZ building and retrieved Duo's body, leaving a
high amoun of explosives in it's place. Then, he raced back to the
ambulance, placed the body in the back, and sped off in the direction
of the Winner Family Hospital, radio'ing Quatre as he went.

"Quatre, Duo's dead. I need your doctor's to do an autopsy."

"I'm sorry about Duo." Quatre sympathized, in a voice that
spoke of
recent pain. "And I understand why you need an autopsy. I'll tell my
doctors to get on it right away."

"Thanks, Quatre." Heero returned the handset of the ambulance's
two-way radio to it's holder as he pulled into the driveway at the
Winner family Hospital. He was greeted by an emergency team that
brought Duo's body into the morgue and took the baby to the intensive
care unit.

"Why don't you go with the baby?" the doctor suggested.. "We'll
let
you know the autopsy results as soon as they're ready."

Heero nodded, grimly, and headed up to the ICU.

*****

Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei arrived moments later and joined Wing's
pilot at the nursery window in the pediatrics section of the ICU.

"Boy or girl?" Quatre asked.

"It's a boy." Heero replied. "Duo was... " he couldn't
bring himself
to describe the terrible injury Duo had sustained as a result of the
birth.

"It's okay, I unerstand." Quatre put a hand on Heero's shoulder.
"Are
you going to be all right?"

"OZ did something to alter Duo's body," Heero explained, "but
I'm the
only person who ever had sex with him. I rescued him before they
could inseminate him."

*****

"We just finished the autopsy." the mortician and head of Quatre's
forensics team informed Heero. "The victim's body... Duo's body if
you prefer..." he amended, seeing the look in Heero's eyes, "...
was
surgially altered. Most of his digestive and excretory systems except
his stomach and urinary tract were removed and replaced with an
artificial uterus which was linked to the..."

"That's enough." Heero decided. He knew damned well what it
was
linked to. "Damn them all. Duo must've been suffering horribly.
Quatre, didn't you sense it?"

Quatre nodded. "But like you and Duo I believed the doctor's story
about the ulcer. I had no reason not to... or so I thought."